Comments (33)

ladymama - As a person who is NT, I find that offensive. Why would you take children who are perfectly capable of navigating this world and make it HARDER for them?

My son is 8. He still has bathroom accidents and is not night trained at all. I do not trust him to go to the school bus on his own. His YOUNGER sister helps him get to the right bus, and even then if his older sister will not be on the bus (she's in a different building then him and cannot help get him to the bus) then the younger two don't ride. He cannot tie his own shoes. It took him 2 months to learn his classmates names, and I still don't think he has them down. We have concerns that he'll never be independent (because what job would allow for CONSTANT supervision??) Why would you wish any of that on an NT child???

And yes, if I had to take away his excellent memory and love for reading in order to for him to pay attention for 5 minutes and make him independent, I would do it in a heartbeat. For you see, the goal for my children is for them to become independent, productive adults and the skills that get them there. Today, he didn't have a good day at school (not following directions) and he told me he was discombobulated, and that it meant he was confused about the directions. He picks up words like this all the time and uses them correctly. Did having knowledge of that word help him at all? No, it didn't. I certainly would not want my girls saddled with the struggles that he faces in order to get a couple of benefits that most people do without (a photographic or almost photographic memory isn't needed to be successful.)

I don't think NT is wholly better than ASD.They should use this information to start therapizing NT children to have some more ASD Characteristics.

Which ASD characteristics from my ASD ds would you choose to have? The self injury? That's a fun one. As is his inability to have a single conversation. How about those? You are only speaking from a high functioning stand point is what my guess would be. Would you choose to be in a partial mental health program in elementary school because he cannot function at all in a mainstream school? Or would you take all that struggling and pain away and have a typical child who will likely live on their own, get married, and have a career? My ASD ds will have NONE of that, but my NT ds will. I would give anything to take Nick's autism away.

I would give anything for an ounce of hope at the idea that my daughter will be able to function as an adult. The only way I would be willing to see more ASD traits in an NT person would be if I could take them in her place.

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Chill out. I think she's just saying we all have our problems, NT or ASD, and that being NT doesn't some how mean a person isn't going to have problems. There are some positives to having HFA/AS and I'm sure that is where she's coming from, because there are some traits I wish NT's would be better at - including the ability to think more logically and less emotionally and not take things so personally. No need for the gang to come up and gang up on someone who's experience with autism is probably mild and appreciates some of her child's quirks. You KNOW that is what she, and I when I laughed, are referring to and that we aren't discussing the disabling sides of autism but the positive sides that some of this board see with our kids. Lets please not start the ganging up over comments that come from people who are having a different experience, if you're offended, then understand its probably coming from a different experience then yours.

Also, notice she said make them "have ASD characteristics", she did not say "lets make them Autistic". Those on the spectrum tend to be more loving and accepting and have such kind hearts and great spirits. They tend to not be manipulative and are very accepting of others. There ARE things that those with ASD's excel at that are great traits. I'm sure that is what she meant, so lets all take a deep breath, and realize no one on here is meaning to offend anyone and problems only arise when people take offense where none is intended and start to gang up on those who's view of autism might be different because their experience with it is different then others. While it was probably not the best comment to make, if you really sit and think about what she said, it wasn't that bad.

ETA: There are also those who accept their children, usually with mild autism, for who they are and are against therapy and feel that therapy to "fix" their kids is offensive; as if their kids are broken some how. What if the pp was offended to hear that her child was screwed up and needed to be fixed? There are so many different types of kids on the spectrum and just as many parental reactions to how they deal with that. Obviously she may have found the article offensive and her comment was a way of expressing that. I'm sorry that others may have been offended by that but lets PLEASE not get into one of these types of debates over who hates autism and who doesn't. We don't all have to see things the same way and these types of in fighting conversations don't need to be started. They turn people off and make them leave the board because it gets uncomfortable. Let's just agree it might have been insensitive, but wasn't meant to be malicious, and move on. PLEASE.

My kid has mild autism. He is verbal, he has no SPD, he is not violent. He will in all likelihood grow up to live on his own, have a career and lead a relatively normsl life. But he is still disabled. Autism is not a good thing in my book. It is sad that my son has ZERO friends, cant/wont tell me about his day and spends his day in therapy instead of playing like a normal 3yo. M:-(

ASD is a disability. Plain and simple. And it would be abuse to take a non-disabled child and program them to be disabled.

I do not agree that autistics are 'nicer than NTs'. That is at best a stereotype.